In his ‘best interests': U.K. court rules man with learning disabilities should have a vasectomy

LONDON — A British court has ruled for the first time that a man who lacked the capacity to give informed consent should have a vasectomy because it is in his “best interests.”

The 36-year-old man, known only as DE, has an IQ of 40, lives with his parents and has a long-term girlfriend who also has severe learning disabilities. In 2009, DE’s girlfriend became pregnant and had a child. According to Friday’s court ruling, DE insisted he did not want any more children.

His doctors and parents applied to the court for the vasectomy since DE doesn’t have the mental capacity to agree. The judge ruled that it was “overwhelmingly in DE’s best interests” to have the procedure.

Experts said DE was able to consent to a sexual relationship and that a vasectomy would give him a measure of independence. Attempts to teach DE how to use condoms failed.

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Britain’s Court of Protection regularly makes decisions for people lacking mental capacity and has previously ordered women sterilized, but this is the first time a vasectomy has been ordered on the grounds that it is in the man’s best interests.

“The court simply concluded…that a vasectomy was in the patient’s best interests because fatherhood was not,” said Charles Foster, a medical ethics expert at Oxford University, in an email. Experts said another child would cause DE major “psychological harm” and said his relationship had broken down when his child was born.

“This is not a decision the court made lightly,” said Penney Lewis, a legal ethics expert at King’s College London, who said the judge had an obligation to choose the least intrusive method. “This is a man who already has a child and has repeatedly expressed his opinion he does not want any more,” she said.

Lewis said the case showed the burden of evidence needed for the court to order a sterilization procedure.

“There were extensive efforts made by everybody involved to improve his quality of life by other means,” she said. “It would be hard to imagine a [similar] case where the benefits would be more obvious than this one.”